The emergence of the cloud for computing applications has increased the demand for off-site installations, known as data centers, that store data and run applications accessed by remotely connected computer device users. Such data centers typically have massive numbers of servers, switches and storage devices to store and manage data. A typical data center has physical rack structures with attendant power and communication connections. The racks are arranged in rows throughout the room or rooms of the data center. In general, each rack has one or more switches with ports that are configured for certain connection speeds for multiple servers that reside in the rack.
Different servers may have different connection speeds. However, such different servers may be present in one rack, and thus the rack equipment must be configured to handle different speed connections. For example, high speed Ethernet data communication has been commonly used in data centers. However, the data communication for Ethernet may include speeds such as 1 Gbit/s, 10 Gbit/s, 14 Gbit/s and 28 Gbit/s. In order to efficiently use devices that have slower connection speeds, transmission channels may be combined to take advantage of a high connection speed port on a network switch. For example, four 10 Gbit/s transmission channels may be combined to achieve 40 Gbit/s Ethernet physical transmission rate. Similarly, four 28 Gbit/s transmission channels may be combined to achieve 100 Gbit/s Ethernet physical transmission.
Thus, it is common in Ethernet switches to support a fanout mode for the ports of the switch. A fanout mode allows lower transmission rate channels to be combined to take advantage of a higher transmission rate in a switch port. For example, switch and router manufacturers allow for the use of a single quad-port as four independent single ports to greatly increase port density. FIG. 1 shows an example of an interconnected network 100, including a switch 12 and systems 14 and 16. The systems 14 and 16 represent different configurations of network devices such as servers. In this example, the switch 12 has ports 20 that are 40 Gbit/s ports. Other ports represent separate fanout 10 Gbit/s ports from a single 40 Gbit/s port. For example, a quad small form pluggable (QSFP) transceiver may be inserted in a single 40 Gbit/s port. The transceiver has four 10 Gbit/s connections that function as the equivalent of four 10 Gbit/s ports. Thus, one or more of the 40 Gbit/s ports 20 are fanned out to four 10 Gbit/s ports such as the ports 22a, 22b, 22c and 22d. In this example, some systems such as the system 14 have two 10 Gbit/s ports connecting to two ports 22b and 22d of one of the 40 Gbit/s ports in 4×10 Gbit/s fanout mode. Some systems such as the system 16 have a single 40 Gbit/s port connecting to the port 20 in a 1×40 Gbit/s fanout mode
A cluster of servers, such as those in a rack, typically communicate to each other by connections of Ethernet cables from network interface cards (NICs) on the servers to ports on the Ethernet switch. The implication of fanout support of an Ethernet switch, such as the switch 12, is that a network administrator has more flexibility to choose different speeds of network components in relation to respective NICs for a cluster of servers connected to the Ethernet switch. For maximum efficiency, it is desirable for all ports of an Ethernet switch to be utilized fully and therefore avoid unused ports. Therefore, a network administrator typically wishes to ensure the fanout configuration of an Ethernet switch port is correct each time the network topology changes. For example, initially most servers may be equipped with 10 Gbit/s NICs. In such a case, ports of Ethernet switches that support a 4×10 Gbit/s fanout mode or 1×40 Gbit/s fanout mode are configured for the 4×10 Gbit/s fanout mode to accommodate the servers that have 10 Gbit/s NICs. Often equipment is upgraded to achieve higher communication speeds. Thus, the group of servers may be changed to servers having NICs with 40 Gbit/s speed for high bandwidth applications. In this situation, the network administrator has to ensure all corresponding fanout configurations of the ports are correct for the Ethernet switch. The previous port would have to be configured for the 1×40 Gbit/s fanout mode to accommodate the new server with a 40 Gbit/s NIC. Ensuring the corresponding fanout configuration matches the new requirements takes time for the network administrator to accomplish.
Another issue is determining the speed of different NICs of nodes in a network. Currently, a generic method to learn operating speeds of NICs relies on protocols of known operating systems such as Linux or Microsoft Windows. However, the current methods are undesirable because they cause delays in determining the speed of the NICs.
Thus, there is a need for a network system that can automatically incorporate different speed network connections through configuring fanout modes for a network switch. There is a further need for a system that allows detection and determination of the operating speed of NICs based on neighborhood information from network nodes. There is also a need for a system that allows the fanout mode of ports for new network nodes to be readily configured and stored for management purposes.